Check Engine Light Comes On, Now What?

The check engine light comes on when you are driving down the highway, trying to get home. What do you do? We found out as we were about three hours into our thirteen hour drive home last week.  It happened in Ohio, in the middle of nowhere. Weather was eighty degrees, and our car was packed to the gills with our stuff, coolers, three GBGV’s and two humans.

Mom decided the best thing would be to call the service advisor at our home dealership for his opinion. She has worked with him for many years and he just had the car in for service the week before we left home. Mom trusts him and that is important. We all learned a lot that day. Did you know many auto places, like Auto Zone will read car error codes for free? Brad told us he needed the codes to know what was wrong so he could tell us what we needed to do.

We drove over the river and through the woods to Auto Zone and had our codes read. Mom then called Brad, our service advisor and gave him the codes he needed to tell us what to do. Unfortunately, it was bad. He said we needed to get to a VW dealership to have it looked at. We drove another half hour to just south of Toledo and stopped at a VW dealer in Perrysburg.

Mom was really worried about the car and about how they would treat a woman with a broken car in a place she didn’t live. Her first attempt to get help was a fail. The service advisor said she should keep driving, it would be fine. He had no interest in looking at our car. Mom called Brad again and he gave her more info to bring to the other guy. This time the other guy started to seem to look like he might want to look at our car. And so it began. We all got out of the car and went inside to wait for them to check things out.

After almost two hours, the guy came back and told us we had a big problem and they would fix it before they closed at five that day. So, we waited. Mom was quite worried, but she still tried to work as did our navigator. She didn’t take the day off, so she needed to be on her computer. It was not easy since we would not sit still. We were all so bored but we had to wait.

Madison hung out with our navigator once she stopped being a Walmart greeter, wanting to meet and greet everyone that came into the dealership. Mom says the three of us pretty much took over the dealership for the afternoon.

Finally, after about five hours in that boring place, the guy said the car was fixed. He apologized for not listening to Mom initially as she was right. It was a bad problem, and we would have been stuck on the side of the road before we could get home.

Why are we posting about our car and this experience? We learned some good lessons and we think we should share them in case anyone is traveling, with or without pets.

• If a light comes on, don’t ignore it. Find out what it is telling you.
• Have someone you know and trust that can help you if you have an issue with your vehicle and you are not a car person.
• Don’t take no for an answer. You may feel like a pest, but be pushy for yourself and anyone/pets traveling with you.
• Always have extra food, water, kennels, and leashes in your car in case you break down on the side of the road.
• Keep your phone charged while driving. You may need to make a lot of calls.

We are super thankful and happy it all worked out for us, we were really lucky. It is nothing Mom did that caused the issue, it was simply a valve that quit working and started a chain reaction of troubles that would have crippled our car.

My GBGV Life is joining Brian’s Home Blog in the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop!